


fade out to a dark sky

by rumandraisins



Series: to a lifelong love letter [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Established Relationship, M/M, Mentions of ghosts, Movie references galore, Oisuga Weekend, Test of Courage, The Seven School Mysteries, and paranormal activity, and relationship drama, but like there's only focus on two so, they're all on the same club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 15:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14452185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rumandraisins/pseuds/rumandraisins
Summary: The Abandoned School Building Test of Courage is a bet that Tooru has to win at all costs.But then he gets paired up with his contrary, pigheaded, ‘I’m just going to look at you accusingly instead of actually telling you what you did wrong because if you don’t know, go fuck yourself’ boyfriend, who has successfully managed to bring forth the silent treatment since their fight that wasn’t even a fight-Over a month ago.OiSuga Weekend Day 1:Forest| Supernatural |Coffee Shop AU





	fade out to a dark sky

**Author's Note:**

> Just a PSA: I have no idea about the etiquette for OiSuga Week(end) in general? I'm just basically using the prompts and the tag (there is an actual tag for it, that is so cool!!!) as I please OTL So if there's something I need to do that I haven't done, please inform me, I will get to it... as soon as I can -bows-

The Abandoned School Building Test of Courage.

Otherwise known as the ongoing bet between the members of the Horror and Occult Appreciation Club where the victor pair gets final say over the films they will watch for the rest of the _year._ It’s high stakes. It’s do-or-die. It’s not only a matter of courage, but pride. 

Tooru has to _win._

Tooru also gets paired up with his contrary, pigheaded, ‘I’m just going to look at you accusingly instead of actually telling you what you did wrong because if you don’t know, go fuck yourself’ boyfriend, who has successfully managed to bring forth the silent treatment since their fight that wasn’t even a fight-

Over a month ago.

He’s been set up, Tooru steams internally, watching as the rest of the pairs disappear into the entrance of the school building, pouring over the checklist of school mysteries to investigate. Tetsu-chan shoots a sly, victorious-looking smirk over his shoulder as he goes and Tooru gives him an equally wordless but meaningful response that relies heavily on his middle finger and his tongue.

Not that this helps him in any way because Koushi is still looking perfectly content to just hang around by the entrance of the building for the entire night, probably for the express purpose of spiting him.

Tooru considers his boyfriend. 

He really doesn’t want to start another fight. He barely understands what landed him in this one. But if he doesn’t bite the bullet and convince Koushi to come inside with him, he will have forfeited the contest and be forced to endure someone else’s gloating for the rest of what remained of his high school life and that is _not_ okay. Tooru didn’t spend all that effort sweet-talking their faculty advisor just so he could _lose._

He did it for _Invasion of the Body Snatchers._

And _Alien._

Nobody can veto his babies as illegitimate if they’re the only choices they’ve got. 

Not even Iwa-chan, who’d constantly been up his ass for following him to the _Horror Club_ when all he wanted to do with his after-school life was talk about extraterrestrials. 

First of all, Tooru didn’t even _want_ to sign up for the Horror Club, let’s get that right. 

But the Astronomy Club had made it very clear that they were no longer interested in discussing the possibility of life in space without scientific proof and _apparently,_ ancient astronaut theorists do not count as real science. 

Not real science? Not even when they have a PhD and a tv show and the word _doctor_ in front of their names? Really?

But these facts kind of just go over the heads of nonbelievers because their puny brains don’t have the ability to process the sheer amount of truth and knowledge in the universe so. 

It’s fine. 

As if Tooru would willingly associate himself with small-minded idiots anyway. 

And then the Horror Club just happened to be campaigning for members right at that very opportune moment, promoting the enticing club philosophy of _all creatures welcome!_

How else was he supposed to interpret that message?

It’s totally their fault.

They should have been clearer with their advertising. 

And anyway, as if Iwa-chan was any better than him - who the fuck joins the Horror Club because of _Godzilla?_

It’s a legitimate question. Tooru doesn’t understand why no one else sees what’s wrong with that equation.

“Look, Kou-chan,” he tries carefully. “I know you’re mad at me right now-“ 

Koushi’s eyes cut to him sharply, half a glare, half a warning. 

“And that’s totally okay!” Tooru continues hurriedly. “You don’t even have to forgive me or anything. I just want you to think for a moment here about what’s going to happen if, say, Tetsu-chan wins the bet. We’re gonna be spending every day until graduation watching _Rubber.”_

Koushi shrugs.

“It’s the worst movie in the history of mankind, Kou-chan. You won’t be able to survive one day of that train wreck.”

“I think you greatly underestimate my patience for shitty movies, Tooru,” Koushi replies frostily. “I’m dating _you,_ after all.”

So they’re still dating. At least there’s that. There was a point sometime within the previous month of radio silence that Tooru had seriously begun to doubt that they were even friends. Tooru opens his mouth, and then thinks better of addressing heavy topics while Koushi is still looking like he’d much rather be anywhere else. He crosses his arms. “Oh, yeah? Name one movie I made you watch that’s shittier than _Rubber.”_

Koushi is silent.

“See? I told you-“

“ _Star Wars,_ episodes one to three.”

This time, it’s Tooru turn to be speechless.

“That’s three movies,” Koushi points out lazily, checking the time on his phone. 

“They’re not even horror movies, so it doesn’t count.” Which is pretty much the only retort Tooru could make in this situation. “They also don’t have sentient _tires_ exploding heads.”

“They have Jar Jar Binks.”

“Kou-chan, _stop._ ” Tooru says, feeling increasingly distraught. He can practically _feel_ every second he’s losing standing here arguing instead of being inside and exploring the building for himself. How many rooms have the other teams gotten off their checklist by now? Two? Three? There’s only _seven._ Oh god, what if Boku-chan and Akacchi won? Akacchi barely blinks at even the most blood-curdling of discussions. He’s so into horror, sometimes his suggestions get vetoed because they’re _too much_ for a club full of people who fall all over themselves at the barest mention of the word _seance._ He’s going to spend the rest of his springtime of youth being _traumatized._

Koushi sighs. “You don’t even like ghosts, Tooru.”

It’s not about the ghosts, clearly. “Just this one night, okay? And then you can go back to hating me. Think of it like a temporary ceasefire.”

“And you didn’t have to pick me as your partner, either,” Koushi adds quietly.

“I-“ Tooru pauses. 

_I wouldn’t have._

_I didn’t._

How would that sound like, exactly, to the boyfriend he hadn’t been speaking to for over a month?

When Koushi first stopped talking to him, Tooru had tried every possible attempt at conversation, silly or otherwise. He’d called Koushi and bothered Koushi and left a variety of ticked off written messages in Koushi’s shoe locker because there’s no way he can ignore _those._ He needed to change shoes at least twice a day. 

But the most Tooru had ever gotten was that smile Koushi used whenever he was hurt and he didn’t want to show it. 

And at first, the burning press of _why, Koushi, talk to me, I don’t understand, please,_ had been so intense, Tooru felt like screaming at every rebuffed effort. Getting denied just made him try harder. Maybe Koushi was stubborn but Tooru was just as, if not even more, stubborn than he was. He’d wear him down eventually. 

But eventually didn’t come fast enough and at long last, Tooru’s pride had caught up with his determination. 

Look at him, trailing his boyfriend like a trained dog begging for mercy. He’s not a dog, let alone a trained, whining one. If Koushi didn’t deign to talk to him, or care enough about their relationship to fix the hole _he_ made, then what the hell was Tooru still doing? He’s got better things to do. He’s not so down on himself that he’d keep chasing after someone who wouldn’t make him a priority. 

So he stopped talking to Koushi, too. 

It made sense at the time. 

On hindsight, it just sounds like what it actually was - Tooru giving up.

“I think you and I both know why we ended together for this, Kou-chan,” Tooru says, suddenly unable to look Koushi in the eye. Or at any part of him, in general. He clings to the checklist in his hands like it’s going to give him all the right answers but instead, it just starts tearing at the edges. 

“Because we have friends who don’t know how to stop sticking their noses into other people’s business?” Koushi asks dryly.

“Because we weren’t talking,” Tooru corrects him gently, although he’s pretty sure Koushi already knows. “And for a while, I wasn’t even sure that we were together anymore.” Koushi sucks in a sharp breath at that, but Tooru forges on, “And I _hate_ that we’re like this, Koushi. I just want to be okay again. Maybe they’re meddling but we needed to have time alone so we can talk and-“

Koushi surges forward, snatching the checklist off of his hands before he can even finish talking. He turns the flashlight on and makes his way into the building purposefully, like he hadn’t just spent the past few minutes trying to keep himself from actually participating. He stops when all Tooru does is gape at his hazy form in the dark and turns back around, pointing the beam of light at Tooru’s feet. 

“Ceasefire for the night, right?” he calls out, waving the checklist. “We have to double-time to catch up with everyone else so unless you want to spend the rest of your days until graduation watching _Rubber_...”

He trails off. 

Tooru closes his eyes. 

Denied again. 

But at least Koushi is talking to him now and actually managed to get inside without Tooru needing to bodily drag him. 

Which is a little victory in itself, if he’s trying to be positive about it.

He supposes he can handle baby steps, he thinks as he follows his boyfriend inside.

For now.

  


* * *

  


Something they don’t tell you about creepy, abandoned buildings - it’s hot inside. The windows are shut tight and the air is stuffy, stifling and suffused with dust. It had only been a few years since the building had been vacated, but already the signs of neglect and disuse were making themselves known in what little remained inside.

And it’s quiet. 

Eerily so. 

It’s a heavy, pressing, all-consuming thing that erases all thoughts of an outside world existing beyond the otherworldly stillness of this place. Even knowing that the rest of their clubmates were inside this building somewhere does nothing to settle the unease that has begun to stir in Tooru’s gut. 

Except for when there’s aliens involved, Tooru isn’t actually all that big on the supernatural genre. He doesn’t like getting jump-scared. He’s one of those people who has at least one hand over his eyes the entire movie, even in the parts when the characters are just doing normal things like eating breakfast during the day with the light streaming in from their huge kitchen windows. Terrible things happen when you take your hand away from your eyes. 

Not that Tooru had any cause to learn this through experience, of course.

He tugs at Koushi’s sleeve as they climb another dark staircase. “Kou-chan, where are we going?” he whispers, tightly.

“Didn’t you read the checklist?” Koushi asks, in his normal voice. Which means that, in the unnerving hush of this whole place, it’s far too loud. Tooru desperately tries to shush him even when he’d already stopped talking.

He doesn’t have to see Koushi rolling his eyes, he can just _feel_ the judgement emanating. 

“Have you learned nothing from horror movies?” Tooru hisses. “It’s always the ones stupid enough to be noisy that usually get _haunted.”_

“Actually,” Koushi drawls, unimpressed. “It’s the ones stupid enough to _go into an abandoned school building at night_ that usually get haunted.”

“Kou-chan, now is _not the time,_ okay, this wasn’t even my idea.”

“Let me guess. Kuroo goaded you into it.”

Tooru pouts and mumbles something noncommittal. Koushi snorts inelegantly before coming to a stop in front of an open doorway. The sign above it marks it as the music room. 

“The first school mystery,” Koushi reads aloud, sounding incredibly bemused. “Is the piano that plays by itself at night. They say the pianist was a student whose confession was rejected in this very room. She died of heartbreak and now spends every night waiting for the one who can hear the melody of her heart. Don’t linger when it begins, otherwise you’ll convince her that her new lover is _you._ ” 

Tooru gulps, and peeks into the room. Sure enough, the flashlight Koushi’s holding illuminates the old piano that had been left behind in the move, its shiny black finish dulled by long-settled dust. It stands battered but proud in the center of the room, its lid still propped open and its bench perfectly positioned, ready for a performance that will never come.

Tooru eyes it warily, but it’s as calm here as it is everywhere else. He takes a deep, steadying breath and strolls inside as casually as he can. “This piano doesn’t even look like it’s gonna be able to play properly, ghost or not.” 

“Maybe,” Koushi says, coming up behind him and running his fingers over the keyboard, brushing away some of the dirt. “But I bet all it needs is a little tuning.”

He presses one key thoughtfully and the note rings low around the room. 

It’s nothing special, and probably out of tune, but it echoes like an ominous bell tolling the death knell. And maybe it’s Tooru’s imagination, but it almost feels like the atmosphere _shifts_ at the sound of it, like the note was a call and something is _answering._

Like there is something that had been listening for it in the first place.

Koushi presses another key. 

And it _resonates,_ a life-giving breath - the entire room blinks awake, stretching muscles and popping joints that had once been frozen in time. Tooru becomes acutely aware of the cluster of music stands to his left, the chairs haphazardly arranged behind him and his... Koushi, standing before the piano of the first of seven mysteries compiled by the _Horror_ and _Occult_ Appreciation Club. 

Touching it. 

_Playing_ it.

“Kou-chan.”

Koushi’s head snaps up, at the exact same time that he presses another key. “Hm?”

One of the windows is broken, he notices. Outside air blows in from between the cracks and it rushes up to him eagerly, running a cool, shuddering line down his spine. It whispers in his ears and caresses his arms. It wraps him up in its chilly embrace. 

It makes Tooru’s skin crawl. “Kou-chan, maybe we should-“

And then music explodes like a firework from what feels like _everywhere,_ wrathful and threatening, an intense cascade of sound. The room goes from quiet to clamor in an instant and every instinct in Tooru’s body immediately starts screaming _run fast now go,_ his eyes flicking towards the still-open doorway. He knows enough to understand that it might not stay that way for very long. 

But Koushi is still. 

_Don’t linger when it begins._

_“Koushi!”_ he cries desperately as a slow, wondering smile begins to form on his boyfriend’s face. 

_Otherwise you’ll convince her that her new lover is_ you.

Koushi raises a hand and thrusts it under the propped lid, right into the piano’s backbone.

Tooru screams. 

The music cuts off abruptly. 

In the room’s sudden descent back into peace, Tooru’s frazzled mind finally registers the object that Koushi has withdrawn from the bowels of the old instrument. 

A cellphone.

Tooru’s eye twitches. 

He stalks forward and swipes it from Koushi’s hold so he can examine it more closely. A video entitled _Requiem with Lag_ is on pause and when Tooru restarts the entire clip, all he’s met with is silence. He fast forwards. At the thirty minute mark, the phone begins to wail the angry chorus that had so scared him just moments before. 

...He can _feel_ his blood pressure rising. His hand shakes, this time with barely suppressed _fury._

Who would _even-_

The lock screen of the phone is a Philosoraptor.

_Makki._

Is.

Fucking.

_Dead._

Tooru resists the urge to toss the phone out the window but it’s a very difficult fight. Instead, he pockets the evidence until he can be in a position to properly decide what he wants to do with it. Scour it for blackmail material. Troll Makki’s social media. Use it to bury Makki’s reputation so deep into the ground, Makki will get down on his knees and cry. 

That’ll show him to ghost prank _Oikawa Tooru._

“Tooru,” Koushi says, insistent and alarmed. 

Tooru turns to his boyfriend-

And nearly jumps out of his own skin.

Koushi starts laughing, dropping the flashlight from where he’d pointed it up his face.

“Kou-chan, that’s _not_ funny!” Tooru cries, clutching the area over his still-raging heart protectively. “I really thought you were getting possessed, you know! I thought the pianist ghost was going to kill you so you can be together forever like in the Corpse Bride!”

“Aw, Tooru, were you worried about me?” Koushi asks in between giggles.

“Of course I was! I love you!”

Koushi’s laughter dies out. Even in the dim light, Tooru can see that his face had begun to darken with color. He realizes belatedly, this is the first time in over a month that he’s said that, the longest he’d ever gone since he’d first confessed, curled up together in Koushi’s couch and watching horror movies to build up his tolerance.

Koushi smiles faintly, looking at him with the soft kind of warmth that always makes Tooru feel like he’s holding the sun, fiery and temperamental, and yet, even then, there was nothing to fear from being too close to its deadly blaze. 

His boyfriend’s gaze drops to the floor, as if it will mask his happiness any. 

Tooru also realizes how much he _missed_ it, the buoyant lightness that comes at the wake of Koushi’s affection. It’s amazing how easily it lifts the weight of a month of pointed disregard and misplaced pride. That Koushi can still smile at him that way and Tooru can still find ease in it. That even though saying three simple words doesn’t fix the mess they landed themselves in, it’s put them in the path they can walk towards being okay nonetheless. That maybe they’re still watching their footing in this dance they need to figure out together, but the promise of the future is there - a time when they can both look up from the ground and see the world once again, beautiful and bright, shaped as it was by the other’s love. 

“Koushi, I-“

“Anyway,” Koushi straightens, clearing his throat. “It’s not like there was anything to be afraid of from the start. Supposedly, this room is being haunted by a ghost pianist and... 

“That was a _choir,_ Tooru.”

Tooru’s eye twitches again. 

Really, it’s also amazing how quickly Koushi can bring his feet back on the ground. What a well-rounded lover. “I knew that,” he says with as much dignity as he can. “But you were rooting around beneath the piano’s lid and if you broke something, that’s still vandalism of school property. I was just looking out for your spotless record, obviously.”

“Oh?” Koushi raises an eyebrow. “How considerate of you.”

“Yup,” Tooru agrees, face warm. “You’re so lucky to have a boyfriend like me, noble and valiant being that I am.”

Koushi just smiles, reaching up to lightly wipe away the sweat on Tooru’s brow. “Then you should already know,” he says, in a tone that can probably be called fond. “Ghosts aren’t real, valiant being.”

“Of course I know,” Tooru huffs, raising his chin. “There’s no such thing as-“

The low note rings from the piano once again. 

Like before, it fills up the space, deep and strangely mournful. Like before, it makes the hair at the back of Tooru’s neck prickle, plucks at his nerves, makes the instincts in his gut scream. 

Unlike before, Koushi’s hands are nowhere near the keyboard.

Tooru swallows. “Kou... chan?”

Koushi slowly shifts to regard the piano, brows furrowed. “That’s-“

And then it sounds again.

“Kou-chan, I told you, this isn’t funny.”

“I’m not doing _anything.”_

And again.

“That’s not me, I swear.”

“Some other phone, then.”

And again.

_“Whose?”_

“I don’t know, Mattsun’s?”

And then, it’s more than one note, but a series of them, one after another until it’s not just an aimless press of keys but _music,_ a rapid, haunting piece that Tooru could have found pleasant, if there had been someone human sitting on the piano bench.

“Ohmygod, I’m going to _kill_ those two when this is over,” Tooru fumes, marching to the music stands and beginning to search for yet another hidden speaker. “Look under the lid again, Kou-chan. You might have missed something there.”

“Tooru.”

There’s nothing on the stands so Tooru starts on the chairs, using the light of his own phone to search by. There’s nothing here, too. This one must be more cleverly hidden, just in case the other one got caught. He scans the room, trying to spot a place obscure enough to conceal a small device. By the windows? The chalkboard? Or maybe it’s really been just hidden better inside the piano, after all.

Koushi hasn’t moved.

“What?” Tooru says, trying to ignore the rapidly unveiling thread of certainty in his mind. “Do you want me to do it myself? Lend me the flashlight then, I can do it myse-“

“I know this piece.” 

Koushi’s eyes are wide.

“Even more reason to believe that we’re being pranked-“

“Tooru, it’s _flat,_ ” Koushi cuts him off. “It’s _out of tune.”_

“But, but...” 

And maybe it’s just Tooru, but the shadows seem darker now than they did a while ago, lengthening, creeping towards him like spindly, searching hands, clutching for limbs to drag with them down into the gloom.

Something brushes against his ankles.

Tooru cringes away before he sees the piece of paper that’s fluttered to the floor in his search. 

He sighs in relief.

But then the music rises, quickening in pace, exponentially growing in volume and the feeling doesn’t last.

“I think we should go,” Koushi decides, moving towards him and clutching his hand. His fingers are cold. “Now.”

“But-“

“ _Move,_ Tooru.”

“But I thought you said ghosts aren’t real!”

A dissonant _clang_ sounds from the piano, as if someone has just slammed their hands onto the keys uncaringly. Aggresively.

“You can’t find that on Youtube,” Tooru finds himself saying hysterically, as Koushi breaks into a run, tugging Tooru forcefully until his legs get the message and he stumbles out of the room after him. “Kou-chan, _you can’t find that on Youtube!”_

“Run now, talk later!”

The melody follows them out, coming faster, angrier, more violent. Koushi blindly throws them around one corner and then the next, until they can hear nothing but the sound of their breaths as they race down a dark hallway in no particular direction but away. They finally slow when one corridor merely ends with another door. 

Miracle of miracles – they don’t seem to have been followed.

They both bend over, panting, and when Tooru can finally breathe normally - he’s not usually so big on exercise, god, how long has it been since he’s last run this hard? - and look past what must count as a genuine paranormal encounter, he glances at his boyfriend and smirks weakly, feeling very vindicated for some reason. 

That he can totally name by himself but it’ll sound much better coming from Koushi’s mouth.

“Don’t give me the smug, _I told you_ so look,” Koushi says warningly. “Ghosts aren’t real.” He looks very put out when he says this. 

“Really.” Tooru crosses his arms in front of his chest and strokes an imaginary beard. “You see, that’s very interesting to me, Sugawara-san, because if you still believe that, then _why did you run away,_ hm?”

Koushi’s pout deepens. “Just in case.”

“Just in case _what,_ Kou-chan?”

“...Just in case I was wrong, okay.”

“What?” Tooru leans forward, pretending to be confused. “I’m sorry, can you say that again? I can barely hear you over the racket this possibly haunted piano is making, playing by itself at night in an abandoned music room-“

Koushi’s fist hits its mark on his upper arm. 

_“Kou-chan.”_ Tooru glares. “You don’t have to be a sore loser about it. You could have just freely admitted that I was right all along and shame on you for doubting the all-seeing eye of the great and powerful Oikawa-san and I would have peacefully let it go then.”

“Sure you would have,” Koushi’s face is disbelieving. And then he smiles. “But I guess I can’t really blame you for relishing it, considering how it’s never happened before.”

“Koushi, I’m warning you.”

“So for what it’s worth, you _might_ have been right, Oikawa-san,” Koushi admits and strangely enough, it doesn’t make Tooru feel any better because if he knew Koushi at all-

“Please enjoy the moment thoroughly, because it’s also probably never gonna happen again.”

There it is. “Ohmy _god.”_

And.

He knows he should at least be a little bit insulted, and he _is,_ it’s just that... despite how aggravated Tooru feels right now, all he can think about is how it’s been so long since Koushi has looked at him like that. And how he wants to make the most of the opportunity while it lasts. How he wants to just kiss that grin right off of Koushi’s face and-

And why shouldn’t he?

He steps forward right into Koushi’s space and settles a hand on the nape of his neck, tilting his head back so he can see the intent on Tooru’s gaze. He does it slowly so Koushi still has time to decide that he wants to go on being mad at Tooru after all but Koushi grasps the lapels of his uniform and _pulls_ him in, bringing his arms around Tooru’s neck and rising to meet his lips, urgent and ungraceful and scorching as Tooru responds in kind, his own urgency just as fierce. His back slamming against the wall feels almost like a muted kind of realization compared to the feel of Koushi in his arms, Koushi’s fingers tangling in his hair, Koushi arching his back and gasping when Tooru’s questing lips trail down his jaw and Tooru’s arms wind around his waist. 

_“Tooru.”_

_God,_ Koushi’s voice is _beautiful,_ breaking around Tooru’s name so perfectly, as he pulls Tooru in and whimpers when Tooru sucks a mark into his delectable neck. 

Weeks without this. 

Who can blame Tooru for wanting?

Who can blame Tooru for _taking?_

Who can-

Something brushes against Tooru’s ankle. 

And just like that, the spell is broken and Tooru jerks away, practically stumbling along the wall, gaze wildly searching for the cause of that phantom touch.

“What-“ Koushi says, looking lost.

“There...” Tooru points frantically. “There was... On my leg, there was-“

“There was _what?”_ Koushi demands, foot falling back to the floor as he starts trying to fix his mussed appearance, face settling on an expression that very plainly conveys the opinion that he can’t believe the way Tooru is being right now. 

Not that Tooru can blame him. If he was to be honest with himself, Tooru can’t believe the way he’s being, either.

Really, his brain needs to figure some priorities out. Who cares if they were inside what could possibly be a haunted death trap of doom? Tooru hasn’t gotten laid in over a _month._

And, evidently, that phantom touch was just Koushi’s lower extremities on their way to joining in on the party so, as it turns out, Tooru had literally just been cockblocked by himself. 

Tooru lets out an exasperated breath. “That,” he says, trying to figure out a good enough explanation for his equally horny boyfriend that won’t result in an even more extended period of celibacy. “Was... A. Um.” He scours the ceiling for inspiration. “Late-onset.” He clears his throat. “ _Fear_... reaction.”

“A late-onset fear reaction,” Koushi repeats tonelessly.

“Exactly,” Tooru nods smartly, smoothly, so used as he was to just rolling with bullshit. “It’s a _phenomenon_ that occurs when your brain hasn’t entirely processed a stressful situation. Causing a belated reaction once it has _perceived_ that said situation has passed and... the... the... fight-or-flight instinct! Has. Passed. Yes.”

Koushi’s eyes go from all narrow and squinty to wide-eyed brimming mischief in exactly one second. “So basically what you’re telling me is that you interrupted a perfectly good make-out session because you thought me trying to play footsie with you meant that you were being haunted by a ghost with an unexplained obsession for feet. Like, a literal ghost with a foot fetish.”

“Well. When you put it like _that.”_

At least this time, Koushi has the decency to cover his mouth while he laughs at him.

“I hate you,” Tooru mutters peevishly.

“I love you, too,” Koushi sings and easy as that, Tooru’s chest warms with the answering sentiment. 

“Do you-“ he starts haltingly. “Do you just want to go?”

“Go?”

“Leave. Forfeit the bet and just... go home with me?”

Koushi tilts his head adorably. “I thought you wanted to win the bet.”

“Who cares about the bet anymore? Besides,” Tooru picks up the forgotten checklist from where it landed on the ground when Koushi let it go in favor of the aborted make-out session. “I think I’ve been possibly haunted enough for one lifetime.”

“But I don’t want to watch _Rubber_ every day until graduation,” Koushi says, smiling crookedly. “I want to watch _Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”_

Tooru’s mouth falls open. _“Koushi.”_

“And I’d like to think I’m not the type to give up in the middle of what I started just because it got difficult.” Koushi meets his eyes, lifting his chin determinedly. There’s steel in his voice and his gaze and even in the way he stands. 

It’s almost like he wasn’t even talking about the bet anymore. 

But it also feels as if he’s only just now realizing this for himself.

“And neither are you, Tooru.”

Which is true enough.

Koushi gently takes the checklist from him and reads through the rest of the seven school mysteries, smiling. “Let’s finish this together.”

And Tooru can’t help himself, he draws his boyfriend into a tight hug, burying his face into the silken nest of Koushi’s hair, the sugar and spice of Koushi’s scent, fisting his hands around the material of Koushi’s uniform. There’s so much he wants to say, so much they still need to talk about but for now, he contents himself with this - with Koushi opening his arms and accepting him so close to his heart once again. “You really want to watch _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ with me?” 

“That’s the one where the aliens needed to phone home and made a bicycle fly against the backdrop of the moon, right?”

“Shut up, Kou-chan. Don’t ruin this proud nerd moment I’m having with you.”

  


* * *

  


The next few mysteries are as uneventful as they come, which Tooru is forever grateful for, relaxing by degrees at every item in the checklist that’s getting crossed off without some kind of supernatural incident.

Well.

Mostly.

(“Kou-chan, don’t freak out.”

“I’m trying not to freak out but _you’re_ freaking me out.”

“Okay, but like, there’s this black blob that just fell on your hair and it’s... _moving around.”_

“What? Where is it now? Get it away!”

“Stop flailing so much! I can’t-! Kou-chan, that’s my hand! Wait- Ah!”

“What?! What is it!”

“Oh, it’s just a spider. Oh, thank god.”

 _“That doesn’t make me feel any better, Tooru!”_ )

“Kou-chan, come _on.”_

Koushi stomps into the Biology Lab right in front of him and slides the door shut forcefully. Tooru opens it again with the ease of long-practice, having chased after him through mysteries number five and six in the exact same fashion. 

“Is this still about the spider?” Tooru asks. “I said I was sorry! And, I mean, if you compare the threat levels of ghost against spider, I think you’ll agree with me that the spider was definitely something to thank the gods about.”

Koushi gives him the stink eye.

“You can’t be mad at me forever just because of a _spider.”_

“I can be mad at you just because of a spider if it happened _ten minutes ago.”_

“I got it off of you in the end, didn’t I?”

“Please don’t remind me that you touched an actual spider with your actual hands. I don’t even want to look at them.” Koushi shudders, pointing at the sink that’s built into the far wall. “Would you _please_ go see if there’s still water from there so you can wash it all off?”

“Wash what off?” Tooru wiggles his hands. “It’s just a spider, Kou-chan.”

“I swear to god, if you say _just a spider_ one more time-”

“Okay, _fine,”_ Tooru sighs, raising his hands in surrender. 

Honestly, Koushi was a lot cuter when he still had the spider on top of his head.

Not that he’d ever say that to Koushi’s face, but still.

The sink had fallen into the exact same state of disrepair as everything else that had been left behind in this building. Tooru could tell that it used to be white porcelain and this just makes the coating of dust stand out even more against its cracked surface. As well as the areas where the dirt had been wiped away. It looks like it’s been done recently enough that Tooru assumes it’s from another pair that had found their way into the Biology Lab before them. 

“Let’s check off this room quick, Kou-chan,” he says, twisting the faucet handle hard. “It looks like someone else has already been here before us.”

“Please focus on the handwashing,” Koushi calls back, voice slightly muffled. “I’m still trying to find the skeleton.”

The handle protests, screeching at Tooru’s rough treatment. “Did you check the closet?”

“Very funny, Tooru. You must think you’re so hilarious.”

The faucet begins to sputter. “As a matter of fact, I _do_ think-“

And suddenly it starts gushing dirty water. Tooru wrinkles his nose. He’d rather keep the spider germs. Who knows how long this water has been stuck in the plumbing of this rusty faucet accumulating bacteria and becoming a breeding ground for disease?

Koushi will just have to deal, he decides as he goes to shut the faucet off. 

“Tooru?” The beam of light gets pointed in Tooru’s direction. “Are you okay? You went quiet all of a sudden.”

Tooru throws a smile over his shoulder. “Water’s dirty so I guess you’re going to have to bear with my filthy hands, after all.”

Koushi smirks. “But they’ve always been filthy.”

“O _ho._ Are you _insinuating_ something, you naughty thing?”

“Not insinuating. You know exactly how much I love it when you’re dirty.”

“Oh, Koushi. You haven’t seen dirty yet, believe me,” Tooru promises lowly, hurriedly turning back to the faucet, trying to be done with this business so he can move on to far more pleasurable activities. 

The water is still flowing, trailing to the sink in a continuous river of crimson liquid. Koushi’s flashlight only serves to make the color more vivid, a deep but striking red against the discolored white of the bottom of the sink.

...Red?

The mechanism finally manages to twist close, squeaking as it goes, at the same time Tooru’s immediate surroundings go dark as Koushi continues his search somewhere else. 

Tooru’s hand drops back to his side limply as he stares, unseeing, out the window.

Red?

As in.

Blood?

No, calm down. Stop jumping to conclusions. Obviously, there is a far more logical reason for this that doesn’t involve being haunted in any way whatsoever. 

Obviously.

Maybe he was just imagining stuff. There’s that. 

But when Tooru slowly looks down at the sink again-

His head shoots right back up.

Definitely not his overactive imagination. 

He peeks again, just to be sure, but this time, he can’t take his eyes away from it.

And the longer Tooru stares at it, the more it’s starting to look a lot like actual blood. 

Ohmygod, ohmygod, blood from faucets is a classic haunting device, it literally happens _all the time,_ and if Tooru recalls the timeline of those stories right, the next thing that’s bound to happen to the plucky hero that might not even live until the end of the movie is that some creature would be coming up behind him and going-

“Tooru.” 

Tooru jolts wildly away from the voice, before he realizes that it’s just his boyfriend. “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” Tooru breathes shakily, slumping against the lip of the sink. “You know where I stand with my fear tolerance.”

But even then, just the knowledge that he’s not alone in this corner of the room anymore pulls him away from his spooky thoughts. Logical explanations, Tooru. It’s rust, probably. Or like the paint of the pipes seeping into the water. It’s been stagnant for so long, who knows what isn’t possible anymore?

He sighs. He’s in desperate need of a good, long soak to bleed out all the tension this whole thing is causing him. After this is all over and done with, he’s booking a weekend trip to the hot springs and nobody else is invited. Except Koushi, since he’s finally talking to him. But nobody else. Least of all the hooligans from the Horror Club who have brought this night upon him.

He really should have just challenged the Astronomy Club president to a fight to the death like they do in wolf packs. 

“Tooru.”

“One minute, okay?” Tooru says tiredly, trying to calm his racing heart. “Let me breathe and not think for a minute.”

“Tooru.”

“Why did I agree to this, really?” he moans aloud. “Why didn’t you stop me from making this extremely misguided decision?”

“Tooru.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know why. But you’d think I’d be a little less susceptible to Tetsu-chan by now.”

“Tooru.”

“I couldn’t even tell you how he managed to rope me into this if you asked. Do you think it was hypnosis? It must be hypnosis. I would never have agreed to this if I was on my right mind. Fear and nerves are _not_ a good combination for my complexion.”

“Tooru.”

“Not to mention the nightmares I’ll be having for _weeks._ Can you imagine how much sleep I’m going to potentially lose? Every squandered hour is gonna come back to haunt my _pores,_ Kou-chan, that’s the real horror here.”

“Tooru.”

“Ohmygod, _what?”_

He whirls around to level Koushi with a strong glare. 

“What, what?” Koushi calls, from the other side of the room.

The.

The other side.

But.

He could swear Koushi was whispering his name into his ear just now. He could _swear_ it. He even told Koushi not to sneak up on him because he thought Koushi had crept quietly close. How can Koushi be here one second and then there the next?

Tooru’s eyes dart all over the space around him, but it’s still empty counters and empty shelves, a veritable obstacle course of lab stations that Koushi couldn’t have reasonably cleared in the time it took Tooru to turn around. 

He might have made it a quarter of the way through, on a good day, if he was feeling particularly athletic. 

But Koushi is in the _complete other side._

“Kou-chan?”

“Tooru,” two voices reply at the same time, with the same voice. 

Tooru shivers as every alarm bell in his head starts screaming and he doesn’t even have to think about it, his body just automatically casts off his dignity as he makes a mad, graceless dash towards his boyfriend. 

Koushi turns right as Tooru is pulling to a stop behind him. “Look, I found the skeleton! It’s impressive how everything is still intact-“

Tooru grips his wrist. “Nevermind that. We should go.”

“Again? Really?” Koushi rolls his eyes. “This is the last one, okay, so I think you can stand to keep it in your pants for a few more minutes, Tooru.”

 _Ohmygod,_ that is the absolute _last_ thing on Tooru’s mind right now. “Kou-chan, we’re being haunted. Again. _That_ is what is happening _again._ Right fucking _now._ And I, for one, would like to get out of here before your new skeleton friend starts _moving.”_

Koushi points the flashlight to the skull. 

“Kou-chan,” Tooru pleads. “Number one horror movie survival tip is you _don’t provoke the ghosts!”_

“Sorry to say, Tooru, but we’re not in a horror movie.”

“Were you not there when we were being haunted by a fucking _piano?”_

“Like you said, it must have just been another, better-hidden phone,” Koushi says, moving the light to the display beside it - jars full of what look like preserved organs. “I’ve been thinking about it and we didn’t even search the front of the room so it must have been there. Ghosts aren’t real.”

The flashlight shuts off. 

_“Koushi.”_

“Did you not check the batteries on this thing?”

“All the flashlights got _new batteries,_ Koushi, I’m telling you, we need to go _now,”_ Tooru insists, tugging on his boyfriend’s arm, shaking with the need to get out. 

“Maybe it’s the flashlight that’s defective?” Koushi muses, turning it over. 

“Koushi, come _on.”_

“Tooru,” Koushi says sternly. He twists his wrist out of Tooru’s grip so he can lace their fingers together and squeeze it reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you from the mean, creepy things that go bump in the ni-“

Even in the inky darkness, or perhaps because of it, Tooru could have spotted the white bone of skeletal fingers that have closed upon Koushi’s shoulder from miles away.

Koushi inhales. “It’s the skeleton hand squeezing my shoulder, isn’t it.”

It’s not a question but Tooru still manages to reply with a meek, “Yes.”

“Okay,” Koushi nods jerkily. “Tooru, I’m ready to run now.”

“Good,” Tooru says faintly, as the whole frame extracts itself out from its case, using Koushi’s shoulder as leverage. 

Koushi’s hand could have broken several of Tooru’s fingers by now with how tightly he’s squeezing him. “Tooru, why aren’t you running?”

The skull slowly turns in a distinctly inhuman way to gaze straight at Tooru. 

“It’s looking at me. Koushi, it’s looking at me.”

“I would congratulate you for being so desirable that you got the attention of a haunted skeleton if it wasn’t already two-timing you, Tooru, because _it’s touching me!”_

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” Tooru chants underneath his breath as he turns to flee, dragging Koushi’s stiff body along with him. He looks over his shoulder to ensure that his boyfriend has shaken its grip off of him, which he has, only to be met by the sight of the damned thing _chasing them._

“Holy shit, Koushi, run faster, it’s after us!”

“Tooru, look where you’re going, the door’s still closed!” 

Tooru throws the door open, going left without even thinking about it, still pulling Koushi behind him, turning a sharp corner and quickly going down a flight of stairs. He can barely breathe when they get to the bottom but he doesn’t stop running, mind reeling at the thought that they were being pursued by a _walking skeleton._

“Is it still following us?” Tooru pants.

He feels Koushi slowing down to check, and he tugs his boyfriend’s arm chidingly. “What are you doing? Don’t stop running just to turn around!”

“If I don’t turn around, how can I know if it’s still following us!”

There’s a foreboding clatter coming from the staircase, which is answer enough. It shuts them right up. Tooru redoubles his running efforts, taking a blind turn and-

It’s a dead end. 

Tooru skids to a stop. 

A dead end. Not even a door but an actual wall. The deadest dead end of all dead ends. And they’re just standing here, looking at said dead end while a possessed skeleton is gaining on them, possibly so it can feast on their flesh and replace its old, decaying parts with the newest models available in the market aka _their own bones._

“Ohmygod, we’re gonna die.”

Koushi doesn’t say anything, merely tries the first door they come across and when it opens, shoves Tooru and them himself inside without a second’s pause even though there’s barely any room inside because incidentally, door number one has led them both to a broom closet.

Koushi slams the door shut and then grabs a mop and fits it diagonally across the doorway as a makeshift barricade before throwing his body against the door for good measure. 

Tooru quickly follows his lead. 

They’re silent for a few tense moments. 

And then: “Really, Koushi? A broom closet?”

“I’m sorry, did you want to offer another option that wasn’t running right back to certain death-“

“I don’t want to get eaten either, okay, I’m just saying-“

“ _Eaten?_ Who said anything about being eaten?”

“How else is it gonna get to our _bones,_ Koushi?”

“How else... Tooru, how is it even gonna digest our flesh if it _doesn’t have a stomach?”_

“Who fucking knows, but I’m not gonna be the idiot that’s going to try to apply the rules of nature to a _possessed skeleton-“_

Something crashes against the other side of their door. The wood shudders but holds, even as it starts getting battered incessantly, thudding with the kind of force that could possibly break it, if they were really, really unlucky.

“Why is it still chasing after us?” Tooru questions shrilly. “Isn’t it supposed to get tame when it stops seeing humans anymore?”

“How long are you gonna mistake this thing for a zombie exactly?”

“I-“

With another almighty bang, the skeleton abruptly stops its efforts to break the door down. The pause in the assault is quickly followed by the clack of bone on floor, loud against the sudden silence that has enveloped them all. For a few hopeful seconds, it seemed as if the skeleton has finally lost interest in them and was on its way to leave, but then-

_CLACK, CLACK, CLACK._

The sound becomes louder once again.

_Clack, clack, clack._

And then fainter.

_CLACK, CLACK, CLACK._

And then louder.

It takes Tooru a few more cycles of this to realize. “Oh god, it’s pacing outside our door,” he says, feeling dread leaking its way right into his very soul. “It’s trying to wait us out. Ohmygod, Koushi, we really are going to die here, in a broom closet, surrounded by smelly mops and expired cleaning solutions. Because we’re next. _We’re_ the ones expiring in this closet next.”

“Tooru, please,” Koushi begs, sagging down the door until he’s sitting on the floor, drawing his knees close to his chest and burying his head in his arms. 

There’s something in his voice that cuts through Tooru’s hysteria like a knife. He starts worrying his bottom lip between his teeth before following Koushi down to the floor. Koushi barely acknowledges their new position, just scooting to give Tooru a little more room and curling up tighter into himself. Tooru isn’t inclined to disturb him and whatever it was that he was thinking that’s making him look so... small.

So they stay like that for what feels like a very long time, back to the door that was the only thing between them and a haunted being hellbent on coming after them, quiet but for the threatening surety of its presence. 

“Do you really think we’re going to die?” Koushi finally asks, mutedly.

Normally, Tooru would say something flippant like _no, the world wouldn’t kill me off because if I die, it immediately becomes 99% less beautiful_ because the situation they’re in still feels somewhat surreal. They couldn’t really have locked themselves in a broom closet under threat of death from a _walking skeleton._ Who even believes that stupid monsters like walking skeletons even exist anymore? This was just supposed to be a stupid bet that Tooru wanted to win so he can finally watch some quality sci-fi. 

But, like before, something in Koushi’s tone stops him. “You know,” he muses. “I thought the worst thing that could happen tonight was that we’d somehow still get through the entire seven mysteries without managing to say a single word to each other.”

Koushi shifts beside him so he can regard Tooru with an unreadable look. “That’s not an answer.” 

“I mean, I guess now my perspective about the meaning of worst has shifted but-“ _you’ve been so far away and I couldn’t catch up to you and it was killing me slowly on the inside so actually, it wasn’t that huge of a shift in perspective, after all._

He can’t say it, though. His throat is tight around those words, and he shrugs to salvage some dignity instead. 

It’s quiet again. Outside, the skeleton still paces, back and forth, loud _clacks_ and soft _clacks,_ every step a reminder of imminent peril and even then, Tooru still doesn’t feel as threatened by it as the question of where this tenuous, tentative peace he’s made in his relationship with his boyfriend will go.

“...You wouldn’t talk to me.”

Tooru blinks, both at how out of the blue the statement was, as well as the thought it actually contained. 

_He_ wouldn’t talk to Koushi? Maybe in the end, that was true, but not before Koushi stopped talking to him first. “But-“

“About university,” Koushi clarifies slowly. “You were making all these plans with everyone else, and it seemed as if the entire third year population knew something about where you planned on going next year. Everyone except me.” 

“I-”

“I thought maybe I was just being oversensitive about it. Maybe I was just imagining it and I was deliberately forgetting the times when you _would_ talk about college so I can say that there’s something wrong. But then, every time I tried to have a serious discussion with you-“ Koushi cuts himself off, tightening his hold on his knees, fists clenching. 

“You wouldn’t talk to me.”

And Tooru wants to reach out to him, to close the space between them that suddenly seemed too wide for comfort, to draw Koushi into his arms until he loses the memory of the pain that was so deeply embedded into his voice, it makes Tooru wonder how long he’s had to carry it all on his own.

A little over a month, at least.

It’s this thought that keeps Tooru still, the weight of his own faults chaining his arms down, leaving him helpless to watch his boyfriend’s suffering.

“And it’s not that I think you _owed_ me something,” Koushi goes on, his words pinpricks of misery for him and Tooru both. “You could go where you want to go, you _know_ I’d support you all the way, and... and maybe we’d even end up in the same university after all, but I just... I couldn’t stop asking myself why you never wanted to talk to _your boyfriend_ about...” Koushi slumps, defeated, as if he had his arms around himself because he’s trying to keep himself from falling apart, instead of merely just tensing for a blow. 

As if the blow had landed a long time ago. 

He takes a long breath before he finishes weakly, “The future.”

“Koushi...”

“And then I thought maybe it was because you didn’t want one... with me. Maybe we were meant to be just a high school thing for you and now that you’re broadening your horizons and moving on to the great, big world, maybe you want to try something new. Maybe you were just working up the courage to tell me we were over so... So I thought I’d make it easy for you.

“Distance. That’s a good enough extra push for you to just do it, right? Other couples have broken up for less.” At this Koushi looks up at him and smiles in that self-deprecating way that Tooru hates. “But really, I was trying to make it easy for myself. Because if I started letting you go first, then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much when you finally told me you didn’t want to hold on to me anymore.”

Koushi brushes his fist over his eyes roughly. “I know it was wrong. But I was so scared, Tooru.” He takes another shaky breath. Rubs his eyes again. “I was so scared and I let the fear tell me what to do and I’m _sorry.”_

And then he starts crying, soft sobs that still echo loudly in Tooru’s ears. Too loud, too much. Not from Koushi. “It sounds so stupid now that I’m really thinking about it. It sounds so stupid and I shouldn’t have done it and _I’m so stupid-“_

This is what finally unfreezes Tooru - Koushi’s fragmented self-worth. Koushi, who’s never seen for himself how amazing he really is, how beautiful, how precious. How Tooru is the luckiest person in the world that he gets to hold Koushi like this, to cradle him into his chest like this, to press chaste butterfly kisses into hair, every bit of him a treasure to be cherished and adored and worshiped, when all he had to do is look into Tooru eyes so he can see himself as he is, untainted by his doubts, because Tooru will erase them all with his love. 

“Koushi,” he breathes into the skin of Koushi’s forehead. “I did have places I wanted to go, but I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to think I was trying to pull you to those places you might not have wanted to go to. I didn’t want you to think you had to come with me for us to keep on being us, because I was so ready to make it work. A bus, a train, a ship, a plane - I’ll take them all. Whatever I need to do, I would have done it and I knew that for sure so I kept quiet because first, I wanted you to decide for yourself. 

“I thought you would just... know.” Tooru laughs humorlessly. “It’s stupid. How would you have known if I didn’t talk to you? And then after... I was stupid, too. I didn’t want to look desperate. I didn’t want to look like I was scared of losing you, because I didn’t want to look like the one who was more scared between the two of us.” He exhales, the words he’s resisted admitting for so long finally out in the open and he wonders why he’d found it so hard. Why it was so hard to prevent his pride from sabotaging his relationship by letting him do nothing when-

“I’m still scared, Koushi.” 

-it’s easy.

When being scared is okay because.

“I just love you more than the strength of my fears.”

“Tooru.” And the _wonder_ in Koushi’s tone makes Tooru’s breath hitch as he wipes away the crystal trail of tears on Koushi’s face with his lips. 

It’s a sigh, Koushi’s demand. “Kiss me.”

And there are a million other things going on that perhaps needed close attention right now - being haunted the foremost of them - but nothing so important as this person nestled in his arms, luminous and exquisite and real, the want in Koushi’s eyes so captivating, so enticing, mirrored only by the desire pulsing in his own body, growing stronger the longer it beats against his skin, his mind, his heart and so Tooru-

Tooru obeys.

  


* * *

  


When they regain enough sense to remember their current precarious situation, it’s quiet outside. They both press an ear against the door but the telltale _clack, clack, clack_ of the skeleton has faded away completely.

“Maybe it got bored and decided to find another target?” Koushi suggests hopefully.

“Maybe,” Tooru says skeptically. “ _Or_ maybe it just got smart and knows that we won’t get out of this room while it’s making so much noise outside, so it stopped moving and when we open this door, it’s been waiting there all sneaky-like all along and then there will be nothing between us and this monster that wants to eat our meat-“

“Ohmygod.”

“And steal our bones!”

“Please choose your words more wisely next time, this is bad enough without me having to think about a haunted skeleton eating my meat.”

“ _Time_ and _place,_ Kou-chan.” Tooru snaps as he levels Koushi with a scathing glare before continuing his line of thought. “Alternatively, it could be just like I said and it has calmed on the absence of humans from its line of sight and when we open this door, it’s just been standing there aimlessly until _we,_ the _humans,_ gave it a reason to go crazy once again and then there will be nothing between us and this monster that wants to eat our-“

“For the last time, Tooru, we are _not_ in _Train to Busan.”_ Koushi pinches the bridge of his nose, as if it was _Tooru_ that was being difficult.

“Of course not,” Tooru sniffs haughtily. “Obviously, we’re not on a train. Or in South Korea, for that matter.”

“It’s- We’re-“ Koushi sighs. “Forget it.” 

He rifles through the meager contents of the broom closet before settling on – surprise, surprise – a mop. He hands to it Tooru with a strict, no-nonsense look. “Okay, here’s the plan. You take that mop, and I’ll take this one.” He points to the one blocking the door. “And then, if I’m right and there’s no one there when I open the door, we drop it like it’s hot and make a run for it. _But,_ on the unlikely event that _you’re_ right-“

“Really not the time to be petty, Koushi.”

“-and the ravenous monster is still outside, then we use these mops like baseball bats to cause some damage and _then,_ we make a run for it.”

“You mean use the mop like the most important equipment in the sport where I constantly strike out?” Tooru asks apprehensively.

“Just swing in the skeleton’s general direction,” Koushi advises sagely, ever the violence expert, dislodging his own mop from its previous position. “You have a very large target area. Unless you’re totally hopeless, there’s no way you won’t at least hit _something.”_

“But what if I’m totally hopeless?”

“Did I just hear Oikawa Tooru admit he was hopeless at something with my own two ears?”

“Kou-chan, this is a life-or-death situation. As you might have already learned, if there was ever a time to be shamelessly honest, that time is now.”

“Wow, how frank, why can’t we always be in life-or-death situations?”

_“Kou-chan.”_

“Tooru.” Koushi crowds closer to him, putting his hand over Tooru’s shaking ones. His eyes are clear with the kind of stubborn faith and singleminded purpose that makes Tooru want to kiss him again. “You can do this. I believe in you.”

Tooru gulps. 

But when he tightens his grip on his makeshift weapon, his hands are no longer shaking. “Okay.”

It turns out, he didn’t need the pep talk after all because when Koushi opens the door, there’s no one on the other side. 

They don’t even have to discuss anything.

They drop the mops and make a run for it.

  


* * *

  


By the time they’re near the sweet freedom that is the entrance of the school building, it becomes abundantly clear that their skeleton haunt was an isolated incident.

They both pause, still at the shadows of the doorway, observing their clubmates bicker with wide eyes, as if they’ve encountered nothing out of the ordinary and this was just another failed paranormal endeavor. The realization makes Tooru shiver, knowing what had happened to them and what _hadn’t_ for anyone else. 

They exchange glances. 

“We don’t speak of this,” Koushi finally says, but there’s a question in his tone. 

Tooru nods. 

He would feel bad - if someone had an alien encounter before him and didn’t tell him it happened despite knowing how much he wanted to meet aliens in real life, he would be pretty pissed, mostly because how dare the nonbeliever get an alien encounter before him, but also because they didn’t tell him about it - but this story involves quite a few things Tooru doesn’t _want_ to talk about and it’s _his_ so he can do with it as he damn well pleases. 

Besides.

It’d serve them right for putting Tooru in that position in the first place.

They stroll out the door hand in hand, and Koushi immediately flies to perhaps the only safe and sane person who wouldn’t want to discuss tonight’s events any more than the two of them. 

“Asahi, you’re alive!” he crows.

Asa-chan smiles timidly, accepting Koushi’s coddling with good grace.

“That’s because he didn’t actually go in,” their fearless leader Sawa-chan explains disapprovingly. “He let himself be a wimp and Kozume was more than willing to be talked into being lazy.”

Tooru turns to Ken-chan, bent over his Switch, and shrugging carelessly at the mention of his sins. 

“Kenma does what he wants, Sawamura,” Tetsu-chan offers from his place beside his childhood friend. “Don’t act like Azumane intimidated him to anything.”

“As if Asahi is anywhere near my definition of intimidating, look at him.”

“Daichi...”

 _“Asahi,”_ goes Koushi’s disappointed voice. “I was happy for you for five seconds! Give my pride back!”

“S-Suga...”

“You’re late,” Atsumu declares, swaggering into Tooru’s face in a way that makes Tooru tighten his hold on Koushi’s hand. “What, were you _fucking_ in there?”

“‘Tsumu-” Osamu says.

“It’s a perfectly reasonable question when I see Koushi coming out of that building sporting a hickey I’m sure he didn’t have previously.”

Which just makes Tooru wish he’d covered Koushi’s neck in thousands of hickies. 

“-your jealousy is showing,” Osamu finishes dully.

“What?! Where do fuck do you get off, calling me jealous?”

“Oi!” Yakkun shoves himself fearlessly in between the constantly brewing storm that was the Miya twins. “Remember that talk we had just recently about fighting in school property? If I get called to the vice-principal’s office to clean up after your mess _one more time-“_

“Hey, you two!” Iwa-chan barks. “Where are you dumbasses going?”

Makki and Mattsun freeze, already halfway back inside the building entrance. 

“We just realized we missed a golden opportunity to be kinky,” Mattsun explains at the same time Makki drawls, “Come on, Iwaizumi. Did you really think we were gonna let Oikawa get more game than _us?_ The blasphemy.”

“Nobody is getting game in the old school building under my watch!” Sawa-chan booms. And then points to where Boku-chan is also trying to sneak back inside carrying Akacchi. “That includes you two! A school-sanctioned activity is _not_ the time to be thinking about having sex! I know we’re teenagers but let’s not leave all our decision-making to our hormones. Stop and think with your brains for a moment! There is a _line-”_

“You sound like your dad, Sawamura!” Tetsu-chan calls. 

Sawa-chan’s face goes dark.

Oh no.

“Everybody run!”

They all scramble to get as far away from the epicenter of Sawa-chan’s imminent explosion as they can, scattering in different directions to confuse the targeting system, laughter echoing in the dim night.

And Tooru-

Tooru is tired. His legs hurt from all the running he’s not used to doing so that means he might not get to go as far as he should and would have to suffer through one of Sawa-chan’s legendary scoldings because of it. 

And yet.

With Koushi’s hand warm in his own and the memory of his kisses still fresh in his mind, Tooru is ready to face down _anything._

  


* * *

  


Extra:

Tetsu-chan won the bet, of course. His partner was Yakkun - arguably more stable and put together than the rest of the people in the Horror and Occult Appreciation Club combined.

The deal goes: alternating weeks of unquestioned movie choices for the members of the winning pair.

Therefore.

It’s their fifth time watching _Rubber_ in as many days.

“But this is such a good deal!” Koushi is comforting Asa-chan. “Think about it, Asahi. We could be watching authentic, pee-your-pants-scary horror movies right now but instead, we’ve got a tire exploding heads. It might as well be a comedy.”

“You wound me so deeply, Suga-chan, you don’t even know,” Tetsu-chan says from where he’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with the projector. “Have you ever thought about the fact that maybe you just aren’t capable of understanding true artistry-“

“Honestly,” Yakkun cuts him off, rising from his perch on the other side of Asa-chan. “I get a constant reminder that you are an actual disaster of a human being every time I have to suffer through this piece of shit.”

“Where is the love!” Tetsu-chan cries.

“Don’t worry, bro!” Boku-chan sticks both his thumbs up enthusiastically. “Me and Akaashi love that we get to watch this movie over and over! Right, Akaashi?”

Akacchi glances away from the needle he’s examining and the voodoo doll that’s starting to look suspiciously a lot like Tetsu-chan – it’s all the hair, Tooru thinks – to contemplate the room at large. “No.”

“Ah! Uh... Um,” Boku-chan falters and then starts rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Well... Sorry bro, but actually, I don’t really like this movie that much either?”

“Bro,” Tetsu-chan gasps, looking betrayed.

“Boo!” Makki calls from where he’s lining up an armada of paper planes on his desk, undoubtedly so he could chuck them right into people’s heads in the middle of the movie just to be annoying. “Bros before hoes!”

“Says one of the only two people in this room whose bro is _also_ his hoe,” Atsumu says, looking up from his very involved game of Epic Spell Wars against his brother.

“Hey,” Mattsun drawls lazily, raising Ken-chan’s cellphone-bearing hand. “Does anyone want to see this video Kenma has of Osamu totally beating Atsumu’s ass during a fight?”

“You mean you have a video of basically every single time we fight?” Osamu asks.

“What are you tryin’ to fuckin’ say, ‘Samu?” 

“Yes,” Ken-chan answers dispassionately.

Yakkun raises an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you didn’t delete them.”

“Too much work,” Ken-chan shrugs, glancing at his raised hand, obviously wondering when he was going to get it back without having to actually exert effort to do it.

“Then why did you take the videos?”

“Not me. Kuro.”

Which is the smartest thing for Tetsu-chan to do with his blackmail videos, really. Nobody touches Ken-chan’s gadgets.

“I’m just saying,” Tetsu-chan pops up from behind the projector. “If you ever need a pick-me-up, Atsumu getting his ass beat is a _gift_ to the universe.”

“Fuck all you guys!” Atsumu declares, dropping his cards and clambering to the top of a table. “I’ll have you know, I’m five times stronger than ‘Samu and I can throw down with him right here, right now to fuckin’ prove it.”

“Actually,” Sawa-chan coughs from the head of the room. “According to the Yaku Peace Treaty of 2018, clubroom tables count as school property and if you show any signs of combative aggression towards your brother, perceived or otherwise, I am within my rights to sic Iwaizumi on you, gods have mercy on your soul.”

“Oooh,” is the room’s collective consensus.

“Yakkun is savage,” Tooru feels the need to add, still in the middle of fiddling with Tetsu-chan’s laptop.

“So what! I can throw down with Iwaizumi, too!” Atsumu points. “I’m not afraid of you, I have bigger biceps.”

“Fucking try me,” Iwa-chan growls. 

“Idiot,” Osamu mutters.

“What did you fuckin’ call me!”

“Aha! I got it!” Tetsu-chan crows victoriously at the exact same time – _Bingo!_ – Tooru finds what he’d looking for, buried beneath layers upon layers of useless folders. Honestly, if Tetsu-chan wanted to hide something from Tooru, he should have begged for some form of pity to take root within Ken-chan’s heart.

The projector sputters to life just as Tooru clicks on the folder and makes the mistake of playing a video to check if his suspicions were right.

Presented for everyone’s viewing pleasure - the scene of Tooru and Koushi in the Biology Lab, starting with the ‘blood’ that came out of the faucet and the ‘disembodied voice’ calling Tooru’s name. All taken from hidden cameras in various conveniently-located inconspicuous positions around the old laboratory. 

Every face in the room suddenly takes on that delicious deer in the headlights quality that Tooru loves to be on the receiving end of _so much._

Tooru and Koushi first started suspecting foul play at the beginning of the week, when they noticed some odd behaviors their fellow club members were exhibiting with regards to the recently concluded test of courage. They spent the rest of the week figuring the scheme out. It wasn’t easy. But between the two of them, they have about as much perceptiveness as a strong clairvoyant and twice as much willfulness besides.

Did they really think Tooru and Koushi would never find out?

Please.

They underestimate the power of OiSuga. 

And now it’s led them to this moment, staring at Tooru and his boyfriend like sheep, while Skeletongate plays in the background. 

Tooru looks really good in found footage. 

But that’s pretty much the only redeeming quality of these recordings.

He and Koushi exchange a glance at their proof, the kind of wordless communication Tooru takes pride at and likes to constantly shove in everyone’s face.

Tetsu-chan raises his hands placatingly. “I can explain.”

“Oh, Tetsu-chan,” Tooru sighs sweetly, rising from his chair elegantly and then slowly cracking his knuckles one by one.

_“Run.”_

**Author's Note:**

> \- Yes, the whole thing was one elaborate meddling scheme (although the rest of the members really had that bet going on, too). How did their clubmates manage to pull off the skeleton haunting? Maybe they enlisted the help of the robotics club (via Kenma), who were all too eager to jump at the chance to field test their glorious creation. Also explains how they got video footage, bc of course you need documentation of said test. Just for documentation purposes though. It’s all very discrete and professional. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> \- I listened to Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre (the piano transcription for four hands) on repeat while writing this fic and like, 10/10, would recommend. It's not angry, promise, just v dramatic. The constant key-pressing that happened in the music room is a reference to the twelve chimes of midnight that make up the beginning notes of the Danse? And actually, in the original piece, the solo violin's E string is tuned to E flat so. I'm a nerd, please forgive me >.<
> 
> \- Yes, Suga is afraid of spiders in this au. I wanted to have fun with him too, okay, fite me.
> 
> \- I honestly don't think Asahi could be realistically talked into joining the Horror Club, of all things, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> \- A sneak peak into the rumandraisins special of The Glamorous Writing Life, True Story:
> 
> Me: -feels productive because been writing like a _machine_ for the past five minutes-
> 
> Also me: -takes five hours to figure out how to describe a dirty sink-
> 
> I'm not even kidding, I searched parts of a faucet in Google OTL
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!


End file.
